


Under the Cherry Blossoms

by karrenia_rune



Category: Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Genre: Gen, Promptfic, comm: 50scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-15
Updated: 2011-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-20 11:11:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at Alice, as a young adult, trying to reconcile her duties as an adult with the dreams of her childhood, and the blurry lines were the two<br/>intersect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under the Cherry Blossoms

Characters: Alice, as an adult  
Rating: General Audiences  
Prompt: #17 blossom, Table 1  
Words: 583  
Disclaimer: not mine, I claim only the words and the story concept.

"Under the Cherry Blossoms" by karrenia

She had been so absorbed in reading her book when a sudden noise broke her concentration and drew her attention to a glimmer of movement at the edge of the lawn.  
She left the book lying propped up like a very fat and oddly-shaped paper butterfly.

She stood up and brushed dirt and broken-off grass stems from the hem of her dress.  
Alice walked across the lawn following an elusive wisp of a half-remembered scent more than any actual sound, or sight; the hint of movement that had at first attracted her attention made a sudden reappearance.

The wind changed direction, but she could have sworn without fear of ridicule or the disbelief of any one should they happen to overhear her that the source of the elusive scent still came from the direction in which she was currently heading.  
Her slippered feet made a swishing whispering sound over the soft carpet of the freshly mown grass.

The breeze teased subtle patterns through her still long blond hair. In the back of her mind Alice realized that her she was acting more than a bit irrational; after all these years, the half-remembered and wild flights of fancies of her childhood should really be relegated to whatever place was reserved for such things once one had crossed that invisible threshold between childhood and adulthood.

'Still, she thought, as she reached up to brush aside a wisp of disheveled blond hair out of her blue eyes, "what will it hurt, to at least pretend just a little while longer? Alice had finally crossed the distance between where she had been sitting on the grass near the veranda of her house to the border between where the lawn ended and the stretch of open street began.

A grove of cherry blossom trees had been planted when she and her husband first moved in, and now had grown to form an almost perfect semi-circle. She moved to stand underneath the over-arching bows of the trees, the scent of the fragrant-smelling blossoms wafting up and around her so that she could imagine that was surrounded in a sweet-smelling cloud.  
A movement at her feet prompted Alice to bend over and look to her left when she caught sight of that flicker of movement, too quick to identify or even hold for long, before it vanished again.

Common sense and logic told her that it must be some ordinary animal, a squirrel, or even a mouse, but now that she was caught up in imagining something different, something out of the ordinary Alice very much wanted that glimmer of movement to mean something else. She knelt down and began to rummage around in the spot where she thought she had last seen and heard a solid thunk, thunk, plomping noise.

Wafting down from above her head a tiny shower of white cherry blossoms floated down all around her as she continued to look. Just as she her better sense told her to give up, that she was acting more than a bit absurd her efforts were rewarded. There, as unmistakable as the sky was blue and up was up, and down was down, was a playing card: the Jack of Hearts and a tiny, so tiny almost as if were intended for a little girl's doll house: a silver tea set. Alice smiled and picked up the card, holding onto it between her middle and fore-finger, as if afraid to handle it roughly would make it disappear.


End file.
